Leave Her To Heaven
THE TIMES BFI 53RD LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 14-29 October 2009
Published by: Tremayne (Potter)
Thursday 29th October
On the final day of the festival I made my way across to The London Film Theatre along The South Bank to watch the film ‘Leave Her To Heaven’ which prevented me from checking-in on my e-mails concerning the films that had been awarded prizes and the times they would be screened that very same day, however, it meant I got to experience a re-mastered 1940s film classic, which I might otherwise have never seen. Check end of review for list of prize-winning films.
Leave Her To Heaven
Dir.: John M Stahl/ Scr Jo Swerling/ with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price/ USA 1945/ 110 min
‘A film seemingly made in a trance and best seen in a state of fever,’ says David Thomson in Biographical Dictionary Of Film. ‘A fever pitch’, reflects Anthony Lane in an article for the New Yorker, reminiscing over films past in time for a revival in New York.
John M Stahl is well established for pre-sirk, black-and-white romantic melodramas described as ‘women’s pictures’, for example, in Back Street and Imitation of Life, before taking a brave step in to what has been described by Thomson as being ‘self-destructive technicolour emotionalism’. And it is through the essence of technicolour and the film’s ‘noir’ feel that our attention is constantly held. Gene Tierney plays a horrid heroine. Clearly born to have been projected on to three-strip technicolour. Her lips said to be ‘as red as a witch’s apple!’ Think Snow White, oozing her sweetness from the offset till domination is allowed to take control. Tierney’s character Ellen is uncaring, utterly fixated, hanging on to ‘a father complex’, which she allows to transfer across to husband Richard, played by Cornel Wilde, while, in comparison, her sister (Jeanne Crain) remains the forever perfect and doting one. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Ellen, she just loves too much’, says her mother convincing Richard, after which Ellen under an act of jealousy witnesses his disabled brother drowning and does not go to his aide. She then miscarries their unborn child by purposely stumbling down the stairs. Over-the-top in every sense of the word but really captures the era in which it was shot.
The Academy Film Archive is to thank for the brilliant restoration of Oscar-winning cameraman Leon Shamroy’s rich Technicolour photography, which was financially supported by The Film Foundation.
The Awards at this year’s festival acknowledged the following films:
The awards this year were awarded to the following films:
Winner of Best Film Award: The Prophet
Winner of The Sutherland Trophy: Ajami
Winner of Best British Newcomer Award: The Scouting Book for Boys
Winner of Grierson Award: Defamation
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